Ross Gittins’ review – http://tiny.cc/av9jow – based of Ian McLean’s book “Why Australia Prospered” failed to mention that our prosperity was and is largely based on the substantial dispossession and systematic persecution of Australia’s indigenous people. Their land and livelihood was stolen from them and they were persecuted and killed if they resisted. The systematic kidnapping of their children, to make them loose their language and their culture, to grow up with no parents, to train them as virtual slaves for white people and to be often subjected to sexual abuse was widely practised by Christian white people and Government organizations.
This shocking situation is a national shame that Government organizations and religious institutions want to hide under the carpet. At the time when the First Fleet arrived the Aborigines had a far better and far healthier lifestyle than the British working class where 10-year-old boys were working in mines 12 hours a day for pittance. In spite of the fact that we are a rich country, our native survivals have no share of that richness.
– Andrew Partos, Seaforth NSWM/p>